Winnipeg Canada: Canada's Museum for Human Rights has taken a stand by defining the country's historical treatment of Aboriginal peoples as a genocide. The progression from milder wording such as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's "cultural genocide," was directed by the Museum's CEO John Young. Canada has been relatively comfortable with "cultural genocide" as the norm despite evidence that the genocide was more than cultural, and continues. There's the Government's lack of effectiveness in dealing with extreme tuberculosis rates, the exorbitant percentage of reservations with undrinkable water, the extreme suicide rates, the disproportionate numbers of Aboriginal peoples in prison, the inadequate poorly constructed cheaply made and susceptible to mould housing in native communities, the lack of healthy nourishment in poverty stricken communities. In 2013 the UN Special
Rapporteur on Indigenous rights found Canada's Indigenous peoples to be living "in crisis". The difficulty is that genocide denial of the past allows genocide to progress into the future. Despite the Museum's courage Canada's primary NGO dealing with the issue of genocide has almost predictably undercut the Museum's honesty. The Montreal Institute of Genocide and Human Rights Studies at Concordia University (MIGS) Director Frank Chalk, a well-respected academic, has approved of the Museum's recognition of genocide but suggests that, and I'm quoting from Leonard Monkman's CBC reporting, "if everything becomes genocide, then nothing is genocide. If they truly adhere to the policy and the judgment that all contact from the earliest colonial period until today constitutes genocide — I don't really see how they could justify that." MIGS policies rarely if ever counter those of the U.S. and Canadian governments, despite a North American history of genocides. NB: Night's Lantern genocide warnings for Canada and instances where the Convention may be violated; genocide warnings for the U.S. where the issue is more highly suppressed.

St. Marys Georgia: (previous) on April 26th Justice Benjamin Cheesbro of Georgia's Southern District Court ruled that the government hadn't, under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, violated the rights of the King's Bay Plowshares, by trying to imprison the 7 activists for twenty years. While the judge found each of good and sincere faith, he also found the twenty year sentence each faces, the government's least coercive alternative. It seems the Court is simply mad. The offense is basically trespass (which under Christian law asks for and gives forgiveness), with no substantial harm done to ordnance or people. The essential damage seems to be to the aura of sanctity which surrounds U.S. military installations, as if the weapons and warheads within have nothing to do with the people and are holy, untouchable. While Plowshares groups have gradually broken down the demonic sanctity of nuclear weapons, they've also alerted the military to its vulnerability to the will of the people, to citizen protest, to religious conviction, to a normal sense of right and wrong. Unjust power with its historical proclivity for shooting the messenger, is threatening to lock up these non-violent activists for what could be the rest of their lives. Attorney for the defendants, Bill Quigley is one of the truest human rights lawyers in the U.S.
and for example he was there for Father Jean Juste in Haiti ( archives), and is appealing Judge Cheesbro's decision before the Federal District Court Judge, Lisa Godbey Wood. This case takes place at the heart of an area subservient to the nuclear industry , federal government, and military. While the action is exclusively Catholic and exclusively white, the concern for the continuation of all life and the possible destruction of the planet, these concern everyone.

Author's note: with the U.S. threats of war against Iran I've linked a poem by the Iranian poet, Forough Farrokhzad and then her moving and beautiful because it is loving, film of lepers. Divorced, her husband had won the rights to raise their child. She adopted a child of the lepers and raised him. "La maison est noire" (1963) [access:< https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=RTOTPwVNznQ&feature=share&fbclid=IwAR0AzpnyPX0sbqfc3Ih5Io5XK8dRFntK89wBIMS-mj-IKeGsjqHKDCbA7Qo >]. When she died in 1967, it was the result of swerving to avoid a school bus of children. She was a poet. Her film takes me back to my memories of lepers as a young man. In Gabon the disease wasn't shunned or strictly isolated. In 1960 Schweitzer's Hospital included a leper village. Everyone at the Hospital worked except those who were too sick. I was asked to work with the lepers on a boat landing . Usually one of the staff joined us to direct the project and Doctor Schweitzer came by regularly and I'd take a smoke break and talk with him. What I realized from my co-workers was that each leper considered self just like anyone else except disfigured, often, by the disease which at first is so frightening. Like Schweitzer's strong objections to nuclear arms, testing and development, the leper village at his hospital was rarely spoken of. European staff avoided touching the lepers. The doctor whom I admired in charge of caring for the lepers was Japanese. As I understand it leprosy has since been almost entirely eradicated but in 1960 it was considered not curable. As much as missionaries are reviled for changing the cultures where they ministered or educated, they provided for a century or so medical care and education offering some hope in areas of suffering. There were I think two places that cared for lepers in Gabon at its Independence. Aside from a portion of l'Hopital Schweitzer there was a small leprosarium deep in the interior and almost unreachable, where Dr. Schweitzer asked me to take medications when I left to teach at Missions schools. Thirty years later I wrote a poem about it:

i forget nor remember
either of their names
find no clarity in a mind held
moment of her face, or hers
for thirty years time softened to
ocean worn pebbles of insight
sling-ready against sorrow

two european women
nurses of the leprosarium at e'beng
no world knowing them but their patients
and us in that thousand kilometres square
"unsafe for europeans" during independence
a missionary and i risking the jeep
with its light boxes of medication
were welcome because they couldn't do without
yet somehow unseen we were
as if our similarities to them made us memory
as if our shared language hurt their throats
with unaccustomed syllables
in a lost to them language of pain
a need for uttering the obvious
while their words to the lepers
were moments of song in dialect

the younger showed me the garden
which grew the food for all
stood beside me in silence
under a break to the sky
as if we were counting the rows

the older uneasy
sat across from me at table
confronting a world thought about and left
eyes dark short black hair
skin radiant to mind white as midday sun
for no reason i said do you need me here
to no answer closed lids
do you want to go back i said
finding my purpose
with apology to the missionary
she shrugged and said we will stay here
did she mean forever

when it was time to go
a patient climbed into the jeep
started it made it plunge ahead
into a ditch then tilted with wheels spinning
i thought he couldn't drive
thought later he tried to make us stay

for thirty years i loved them both
and when we left
i never heard of them again

- john bart gerald, poems from a river city. Ottawa: Gerald and Maas. 2000.

Kivu Province, Democractic Republic of Congo: With over a billion dollars pledged so far to rebuild Notre Dame de Paris, another monument to what Western civilization has accomplished enacts a daily tragedy before the forests and villagers trying to stay alive in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Still ignored in the Euro-American press is a current Ebola epidemic in particularly Kivu province ...(continue "Ebola and the Resources of Eastern Congo," by J.B.Gerald).

Alexandria Virginia: Chelsea Manning was serving a 35 year sentence for providing Wikileaks with classified information, when she was freed in 2017 by President Barack Obama's commutation. On March 5th, 2019 her attorneys tried to counter the government's subpoena of February 5th which required Manning to appear before a federal grand jury to answer questions about her dealings with Wikileaks. Forced to appear, she refused to provide information and was placed in the Alexandria Detention Center. Manning is supposed to stay in prison until she agrees to testify, as long as the grand jury is in session. Her attorneys' bids to free her on bail or to appeal the court order have been denied. The U.S. has requested the extradition to face criminal charge in the U.S., of Julian Assange who founded Wikileaks. In England Assange was removed from the Ecuadorian Embassy March 11th and placed in a maximum security prison. Habitually refusing to acknowledge international law it's puzzling that the U.S. can make legal claims to jurisdiction over an Australian national in Great Britain. Background. Partial sources online: "Chelsea Manning jailed for refusing to testify before grand jury in Virginia," March 8, 2019, NBC News; "Appeals court rejects Chelsea Manning's effort to leave jail," April 22, 2019, NBC News.

State Correctional Institution – Mahanoy, Pennsylvania: Night's Lantern has noted previously that "under a ruling Dec. 28, 2018 by Philadelphia Common Pleas Judge, Leon Tucker, Mumia Abu-Jamal is finally granted an opportunity to argue for his freedom in a retrial. Judge Tucker found that the judge who presided over Abu-Jamal's previous and thought to be final appeal should have recused himself." (WhyY News). Judge Tucker's reason was that the presiding judge had in writing attempted to expedite application of death penalties to Pennsylvania convicts while repeatedly acting as the judge of Abu-Jamal's appeals. The chance for a retrial before the State's Supreme Court of Abu-Jamal's early appeal could have been sidetracked by the Philadelphia District Attorney, Larry Krasner, who considered that, but has relented and the road ahead is clear for the case to move forward. After honestly reporting the MOVE 9's persecution by Philadelphia police, Mumia Abu-Jamal was accused and convicted of killing a policeman and received the death sentence in 1982, which was overturned in 2001 and replaced by life in prison without parole. I first wrote about the case for The PEN Newsletter in "An Open Letter to American Writers," 1994, attempting to move the white American establishment to support the rights and freedom-of-expression of a black journalist.
Background.

St. Marys, Georgia: 7 activists from the Kings Bay Plowshares action of April 4, 2018, who allegedly breached the security of the Trident Naval Station Kings Bay, St. Mary Georgia, are up against 25 years worth of sentences - not for their alleged crimes but for the embarrassment caused U.S. military officials year after year as small groups of christians refusing to accept the military endgame of nuclear armaments and annihilation, breach with ease the security of one plant, base, nuclear installation after another. While cutting through a fence, pouring their blood, marking the base as a crime scene, sharing banners and hammering at a memorial to weapons, the Kings Bay Plowshares presented no impediment to the military operation of the base. These are veteran Catholic peace activists with ages from 55 to 79. Elizabeth McAlister, Fr. Steve Kelly, and Mark Colville, are passing Easter in jail; Clare Grady, Martha Hennessy, Patrick O'Neill and Carmen Trotta are out on bail with ankle bracelets. They are charged with trespass but also conspiracy and two counts of damaging property. Last November their defense was presented in court with a Catholic bishop and theologian supporting the defense's understanding of nuclear weapons as a sin. The Kings Bay Plowshares Seven are basing their defense on the Religious Freedom Restoration Act which may protect under law their actions as necessary to their religion. U.S. Southern District Court of Georgia Judge Benjamin Cheesbro is slow to continue the trial. What is not spoken of in reporting the Kings Bay Plowshares trial is that its challenge to the naval base as a nuclear facility challenges the supremacy of the nuclear industry which has threatened Georgia and South Carolina along the Savannah River for decades. The area hosts (and is contaminated by) U.S. nuclear production and nuclear waste storage (see "Nuclear Notes: the Savannah River Watershed"). The religious objection to the sin of nuclear arms is in harmony with environmentalists' protest against an economy destroying the region's habitat and future. Since 1980 the Plowshares Movement has showed its refusal of the ultimate crimes caused by nuclear destruction, symbolically, pouring blood on nuclear bases and weapons, hammering at nose cones of nuclear missiles. It provides the example of nonviolent action as other movements rise to protest causes of climate change internationally. The military, by its fuel consumption, weapons production, toxic byproducts, its use of and the effects of conventional weaponry as well as nuclear weapons including depleted uranium, its direct wasting and toxification of the environment, remains the primary threat to the earth's environment. Increasingly all U.S. military facilities, civilian nuclear facilities, ordnance and fuel storage facilities in the U.S. will be at risk to the changes brought by earth's warming. The best source I know of for news and updates for anti-nuclear resistance is The Nuclear Resister at http://www.nukeresister.org/.

Canada: on March 25, 2018 in an Edmonton court, Chief Justice Mary Moreau declared Omar Khadr has served his sentence and is a free man with among other rights the right to travel where and as he wants and see whom he wants, and to live. Background.

Ukraine: Canada remains silent about pro fascist demos in the Ukraine and the Ukraine's awarding pensions to Nazi collaborators and collaborative war veterans, while scolding Latvia for its annual parade honoring its Nazi SS troops. A Canadian commitment of 200 troops training Ukrainian forces in "advanced combat skills and "advanced medical training" (CBC) was recently extended by the Liberal government through 2022. Canada has had troops on the ground there since 2015. Currently 150 U.S. troops from the 101rst Airborne Diivision are being deployed from Fort Campbell Kentucky to the Yavoriv Combat Training Center in western Ukraine, replacing the 278th Armored Cavalry Regiment of the Tennessee National Guard.

Israel: Hapoalim Bank, Leumi Bank, Mizrahi Tefahot Bank - three of Israel's most substantial banks, have been fined over a billion dollars by the U.S. government for tax evasion, money laundering, and for holding-accounts of rich Americans and dual citizens operating in conspiracies of tax evasion. Leumi Bank settled with the U.S. government in 2014 in return for the payment of 400 million dollars.

Brussels: the International Criminal Court has backed down in its plans to investigate for prosecution allegations of war crimes committed by the U.S. military in Afghanistan. U.S. President Trump denied the chief prosecutor for the I.C.C., Fatou Bensouda, admission to the U.S. and John Bolton has previously threatened the court officials with arrest. A three judge panel at the I.C.C. found it impractical to proceed at this time but affirms that "crimes within the ICC jurisdiction have been committed in Afghanistan" (CNN). Among war crimes the crime of genocide for example has no statute of limitations. While the U.S. government has withdrawn its approval of the international court, the U.S. is accused of committing crimes within the borders of countries which accept I.C.C. decisions as legally binding. By refusing the I.C.C. jurisdiction even in those countries, the U.S. is paving the way for impunity in the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity; it risks stripping international treaties and covenants of their means to protect civilians and victim governments. As the world's ultimate court in protection of populations from for example the crime of genocide, without the International Court - protection of people from atrocity crimes will inevitably move outside the law's domain. It would save an immense amount of suffering for the U.S. to limit its policies to what international law finds acceptable.

Paris: April 15th the roof of Notre Dame began burning which destroyed portions of the church. Generally the press refers to the cathedral as 850 years old, and refers to the fire as caused by an electrical short circuit. As the fire burned in Notre Dame the 2000 year old site of the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem lost its Al-Marwani prayer room to fire; the cause has not been determined. A series of acts of vandalism against French churches is noted in the months preceding the Notre Dame fire. In Paris the Saint Sulpice church was damaged by a fire March 17th which is reported to have been intentional. In February Notre Dame des Enfants (Nimes), Saint-Alain Cathedral (Lavaur), St. Nicholas Catholic Church (Houilles), Notre Dame (Dijon) were all reportedly damaged by fire or vandalism.

Venezuela: update summary. The civilian population of Venezuela is increasingly in extremes. Their suffering is caused intentionally by sabotage of the electrical system. Its purpose is to force the people to revolt against the elected government and accept the pretender Juan Guaidó supported by the governments of the U.S., Canada, Brazil and much of Europe (previous). The U.S. vice president has specifically asked the people of Venezuela to rise up. His request was ignored. By politically dividing the country Juan Guaidó refuses it the autonomy needed to recover. Guaidó backers in the National Asssembly have stated the power outages will continue until they get their way. U.S. offers of humanitarian assistance are contradicted by crushing U.S. sanctions on humanitarian supplies as well as threats of U.S. military intervention. Russia has placed a small number of additional military personnel in Venezuela despite the objections of the U.S.. The U.S. State Department reports that Venezuela possesses a number of highly effective S-300 anti missile anti aircraft defense systems. This may deter armed conflict. UNICEF is sending electrical generators for Venezuela's hospitals. Citibank has opened an escrow account for Venezuela's funds denied the Maduro government by the bank. Both Russia and China which support Maduro's democratically elected government (as does the United Nations) are heavily invested in Venezuela's resources. The U.S. has maintained a general intention to not be bound by international law.

Venezuela: North American media has continued a heavy propaganda campaign against the government of Nicholas Maduro and socialism in general. Euro-American countries with the exception of Switzerland, Norway, Italy, the Vatican and Greece, followed the U.S. lead in recognizing as the country's president, a self-proclaimed president, unelected legislator, Juan Guaidó. U.S. sanctions and economic policies have driven Venezuela into great hardship - the Trump administration line is that Venezuela's economic failures are the fault of Chavez, Maduro and the majority of the Venezuelan people's choice of socialism. The U.S. sent emergency food and medical supplies as 'humanitarian aid' in an attempt to buy the country's military and people into supporting the overthrow of their government. The aid shipment was refused. The total effect of impounding funds and gold held by Venezuela in international banks is theft and presents a threat against trust in the international banking system, which is working as a servant to U.S. policy. Citibank has impounded 1.1 billion dollars of Venezuelan gold; there are of course complex explanations why the U.S. and British banks have stepped outside international law in taking over Venezuelan accounts held outside the country. Thefts from a country without adequate medical and food supplies for its people may be disastrous, and the crime extends to an action against the people of Venezuela as a national group. U.S. application of economic pressure on Maduro's government, and use of badly needed 'humanitarian aid' as a propaganda tool contribute to a crime of aggression. If you begin to formulate a legal case against those edging Venezuela's people toward their destruction, you might begin with the banks who have blockaded / stolen Venezuela's money, and consider applying charges of genocide against their financial advisers, CEO's, staff, and complicit government personnel. In its own defense Venezuela has turned to Russia and China for support. Bloomberg reports Russia is committed to avoiding U.S. military interference in Venezuela. Despite the fact of a U.S.-Canada alliance aligned with the U.S. controlled 'democracies' of Central and South America, a U.S. armed intervention in Venezuela would challenge for its own profit the global rule of law. Background. Partial sources online:
"Russia Pledges to Help Venezuela Avoid Military Intervention," Yuliya Fedorinova and Ilya Khrennikov, March 3, 2019, Bloomberg; "An Ocean of Lies on Venezuela: Abby Martin & UN Rapporteur Expose Coup," [access:< https://youtu.be/ii5MlQgGXyk >]; "U.S. imposes new sanctions on Venezuela to squeeze out leader amid humanitarian crisis," Thomson Reuters, March 1, 2019, Thomson Reuters.

Haiti: demonstrations by the people to oust President Jovenal Moise and his government, are growing and at points shutting down the country. These crises are repetitive. Recommended: Èzili Dantò of HLLN/FreeHaiti, article, February 12, 2019 https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en&fbclid=IwAR3aKOyZxqiC9bSMt3alRyRFkhh18sqDJqR0MYKuiHJonmxwIxBtmHAFzD4#!topic/ezilidanto/xKY1g9MfNNs For some years Èzili Dantò's work presents a Haiti where the vast majority are oppressed, living in extreme poverty and deprived of their birthright by colonial manipulation. Governments such as Bertrand Aristide's which began to seriously represent the interest of the people were replaced by foreign armed force. The colonial war has continued against the Haitian people with disastrous effect as the richness of the country's resources are understood. It is not beyond the understanding of those who study the motivation for genocides to fear that corporate resource developers will attempt to have the people killed off either in mass or through humanitarian 'benevolence'. In 2005 Aristide called the ongoing slaughter of Haiti's poor a "black holocaust". Since 2005 the Haitian poor comprising about 80% of the population as a national group then, have remained under a genocide warning. Amid the extreme poverty enforced by corrupt colonial rule the mismanagement and theft of recovery funds, of humanitarian assistance, of millions donated by North American people to alleviate the suffering of Haitians could be considered as violations of the Convention on Genocide. Background:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Su9NmftkEnw&fbclid=IwAR2OQ6X4kP6NVdsi7jShHImfaQXcPwJIeQmjlgsMYFI6za1k2CIAM2fhQ3U ,
"Èzili Dantò: U.S. Economic Interests in Haiti, Deceit & Pillage".

i have nothing new to say about warand you don't want to hearfight start be near, itis a summary of what we already knowwars are crimes allowed for profitthe aggressor is always guiltysometimes the aggressor isn't aroundaggressive countries are known to attackself to start a waror trick others to attackwhile the rich, in surfeitlike the poor to fightold men like young womenwe know all this

revolution is another matterall we really know isthere's no play in its lineit happens when it has tono matter the cost

and genocide is anotherthe acquisition of goods and powerby destroying an entire element of societyworse than war it is the fulcrum of injusticea trigger for revolution

wars of liberation are a resolutionthe last defence of a group of poortrying to protect their children their futurewhile the military economic oppressorwe already know the why and how and whenbut not the because

New York City: after a week without electric power, New York's Metropolitan Detention Center, a prison in Brooklyn run by the U.S. Bureau of Prisons, regained power the evening of February 3rd. During the outage according to The New York Times city temperature fell to 2 degrees Fahrenheit. Some sources assert that temperatures in the facility fell below freezing. Information derived from the inmates and prison officials is contradictory. The institution made no emergency heating mechanism available. In protest of federal inaction and against the wishes of federal officials New York's Mayor Bill De Blasio sent the prison blankets, hand warmers and generators. I've found no assertions in the press that these were used or made available to prisoners or their detention areas. The lack of appropriate emergency backup for heat, unattended medical conditions, lack of hot food, slowness in restoration of power, the particular threat to lives of prisoners during a midwinter cold spell, the lack of concern or action by federal authorities is a threat against the city's prison population. There may be evidence that this treatment of prisoners was criminal. A substantial portion of the MDC facility's 1600 inmates were those awaiting trial who are legally innocent but can't afford bail. Some were immigrant detainees. Curiously, Dr. Rafil Dhafir, the moral upstate doctor who is serving a 22 year sentence for trying to send medical supplies to the children of Iraq during Sanctions (other charges against him were violations of economic regulations and technicalities) was being held there, although in ill health and just transferred from Federal Medical Center Devens, in Massachusetts. Partial sources online: "They're Human Beings in There," Garrison Lovely, Feb. 7, 2019, Jacobin; "BOP moves elder Muslim philanthropist from prison medical center to freezing Brooklyn detention center," Feb. 3, 2019, The Nuclear Resister; Part 1 - "Lights Back On at NYC Jail After Hundreds Protest, But Prisoners Still Without Heat in Winter," Feb. 4, 2019, Democracy Now!; Part 2 - "Crisis at Frigid, Dark NYC Prison:'A Choice Was Made Not to Treat People Like Human Beings,'" Feb. 5, 2019, Democracy Now!; "No Heat for Days at a Jail in Brooklyn Where Hundreds of Inmates are Sick and 'Frantic'," Annie Correal, Feb. 1, 2019, The New York Times.

Quebec City: previously mentioned in these pages, the mass murder January 29, 2017 which took the lives of six Muslim men has resolved for now with the sentencing of Alexandre Bissonnette to life in prison and parole possible after forty years. Bissonnette pleaded guilty to the crime. His sole responsibility as the shooter is a point made by the prosecution, defence, judge, and media. Background: 12345.

To clarify the importance of the January 23rd coup attempt in Venezuela we remember that ever since WWII the customary motivation for violations of the Convention on Genocide has been to gain a region's natural resources. For example Iraq, Libya, Syria, Haiti, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan, Guatemala, and others. The people of resource-rich areas are forced into flight, exile, refuge elsewhere, or are attacked by disease, or starvation, or directly murdered by military programs, or divided internally into civil wars assuring the death of multitudes. Damages are inter-generational with the effects of depleted uranium weaponry or mining waste; the survivors of one generation lose their children in the next. The effect of destroying a habitat is the destruction of a people with legal historical claim to the land and its natural resources. If these people are eradicated, resource development proceeds without impediment or any benefit or payment to the rightful owners. Night's Lantern places an implicit warning for peoples inhabiting or able to make legal claim to resource-rich territory. Venezuela possesses about a quarter of the earth's oil resources. The corporate battle for profits is understood to be criminal. The U.S. has made a point of withdrawing from the International Criminal Court and attempting to destroy international law. Since there is strong evidence that Venezuela is threatened with a takeover by corporate interests, represented by U.S. policy, the people of Venezuela are now under a genocide warning.

A summary of the current coup attempt: on January 23rd, Juan Guaidó, leader of the right wing National Assembly declared himself the President of Venezuela. During the presidency of Hugo Chavez, and despite the failure of the first U.S. attempted coup against him, and then after the curious death of Chavez, and after the presidency was assumed by Chavez's and the people's chosen successor, Nicolás Maduro, the U.S. has continually and heavily funded the country's political opposition. Guaidó's counter-democratic declaration was endorsed immediately by Brazil, the U.S. and Canada in an attempt to overthrow a democratically elected government. Juan Guaidó's platform if allowed to rule, would include returning nationalized companies to their previous owners. The U.S. Vice president's call-out to the Venezuelan people to rise up and embrace Guaidó as their President, failed. Of the Americas, governments installed by the U.S. have supported the U.S. position. Countries of the Americas controlled by right wing middle classes at the service of corporate policies and wealth, also support the U.S. position. Western media explain 'a need for change' rising from the country's 'humanitarian crisis,' which on examination is an economic crisis rising from very low prices of oil - and then the debilitating U.S.-initiated sanctions to sideline Venezuela's attempts at economic recovery. As the largest holder of oil resources in the world Venezuela's political and economic difficulties are consistently traced to foreign corporate interests. The European Union has demanded new elections in an attempt to discredit President Maduro's victory at the polls last May and his re-installation as President on January 10th. Cuba has shifted 2500 of its health providers from its mission to the poor in what has become fascist Brazil, to Venezuela. Venezuela's alliances with Russia, China, Turkey, Iran, Mexico, among others, remain. Within Venezuela, the government and its supporters including all branches of the military have remained loyal to the country's Constitution and Nicolás Maduro as the elected President. The U.S.-Brazil-Canada axis attempt to effect its choice of rulers for another country has risked tripping these as aggressors and Venezuela, into war. As noted at the mourning for Hugo Chavez whose illness many believe was the result of an assassination, "Chávez vive, la lucha sigue!".

Côte d’Ivoire: Previous. Former President Laurent Gbagbo was acquitted of all charges (crimes against humanity) against him at International Criminal Court January 15, 2019. His co-defendant Charles Blé Goudé, former Youth Minister, was acquitted as well. In Côte d’Ivoire Laurent Gbagbo's wife Simone Gbagbo serving 20 years in-country for violences following the 2010 elections was given amnesty by Alassane Outarra who replaced Gbagbo as President through the use of force and French Troops. In the humiliation of leaders which seems to be a signature of Euro-American takeovers in African countries (one remembers the 2011 replacement of
Muammar Gaddafi in Libya), at arrest April 11, 2011, Gbago's face was bruised and swollen, his son bleeding and beaten and his wife allegedly a victim of attempted rape by the troops who entered their bedroom. Outarra, supported by the World Bank, the U.S. where he received portions of his education, and France, attempted to use the World Court as a victor's court and have Gbago assume responsibility for the violences of armed struggle which brought Outarra to power. An Ivorian court has cleared the former first lady of crimes against humanity and war crimes rising from post 2011 election violence. While the Western media backed Outarra's bid for the presidency, the Supreme Court of Côte d’Ivoire had found Gbagbo the legitimate winner of the 2010 elections which is why he was overthrown by force of arms.

Winnipeg Manitoba: on January 17th at Winnipeg’s St. Boniface Hospital, a two day old infant was taken from her Indigenous mother despite the mother's and the baby's family's protests. The child was placed in a child carry seat by police and removed under the authority of the Winnipeg Child and Family Services despite the mother's claims that a member of her family was ready to assume guardianship. Under current law the authorities were allowed to take the child because someone said the mother was drunk when she went to the hospital to give birth. The mother and family's acquiescence, though unwilling, may be attributed to the frequency of taking away Indigenous children at birth. If provably a practice federal or international court could recognize the act as a violation of the Convention on Genocide Article II, e. Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.. Partial sources online: "‘Blindsided:’ Manitoba officials seize newborn from mother in hospital," Ashley Brandson, APTN News Jan.12, 2019, National News [access:< https://aptnnews.ca/2019/01/12/blindsided-manitoba-officials-seize-newborn-from-mother-in-hospital/ >]; "First Nations family 'blindsided' by how child services takes newborn from mom, posts video to call for change," Sarah Petz, Jan.11, 2019, CBC News.

Saskatoon Saskatchewan: Previous. According to RT Canadian Senator Yvonne Blyer has claimed that Indigenous women are suffering tubal ligation across Canada, particularly in Saskatoon, and has requested an investigation. A previous report by Dr. Yvonne Boyer & Dr. Judith Bartlett deals in depth with the issue in Saskatoon, noting that "Most of the women did not understand that tubal ligation was permanent, thinking it was a form of birth control that could be reversed in the future." Genocide warning. According to The Washington Post due to coerced or forced sterilizations as many as 62 Indigenous women are currently engaged in a suit against Canada, Saskatchewan, the Saskatoon Health Region, and various medical professionals. Partial sources online: "Indigenous Canadian women still being forcibly sterilized, claims senator," Nov. 12, 2018, rt.com; "External Review: Tubal Ligation in the Saskatoon Health Region: The Lived Experience of Aboriginal Women," Dr. Yvonne Boyer & Dr. Judith Bartlett, July 22, 2017, Discharge Abstract Database (DAD); "End forced sterilizations of Indigenous women in Canada," Nickita Longman, Dec. 4, 2018 The Washington Post.

British Columbia: on January 15th, at the Supreme Court of British Columbia, two First Nations have claimed that three hydro electric projects, the Site C Dam, the Bennett Dam and Peace Canyon Dam, infringe on their rights. The dams would flood traditional territory belonging to the West Moberly and Prophet River First Nations. Their injunction against construction of the Site C dam is to be reviewed. They request the Site C Dam approval by Federal and Provincial governments, which has overtly infringed on Indigenous rights, be overturned. The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has ordered the construction of the Site C. Dam be stopped until "free and informed consent" of the Indigenous people is assured and expects response by April 8th (see previous). One First Nations perspective is that the government is proceeding with cultural genocide. The government previously ignored a reporting deadline last August 2018, and the government's continuing delay shows bad faith. Partial sources online: "First Nations File Civil Action Against Site C, Citing Treaty 8 Infringement," Carol Linnett, Jan. 16, 2018, Narwhal; "United Nations instructs Canada to suspend Site C dam construction over Indigenous rights violations," Sarah Cox, Jan. 9, 2019, The Narwhal.

Canada: Update. Mahmoud Jaballah, a refugee in Canada was detained in 1999 under a Canadian Security Certificate, a mechanism which placed him in prison under threat of deportation. The government's security agency alleged he was a member of an organization linked to Al-Qaeda. The evidence was dismissed by a judge as unreasonable. The government tried again in 2001 with additional secret evidence. In 2007 the Supreme Court found the secret security certificate process too unjust and demanded cosmetic additional legal procedure be added to it, so a third security certificate was applied to Mahmoud Jaballah in 2008. In May 2016 Federal Court Judge Dolores Hansen found "I conclude that the security certificate filed by the minister is not reasonable and will be set aside." The Federal Appeals Court supported her decision. On November 28, 2018 Mahmoud Jaballah filed a suit at the Ontario Superior Court asking for 37.4 million dollars to cover the damages to his wife, himself and their six children, not only for ruining his life and his suffering in prison but for the continual threat of deportation and the effects of all this on his family.

A branch that comes from violence will not take root; for a blighted root is on sheer rock, like reeds by thebanks of a river, which are dried up before any grass; butkindness, like eternity, will never be cut off, and faithfulnesswill be established forever - from Ben Sira (Dead Sea Scrolls Bible, Abegg et al)

This account is against forgetfulness.

by john bart geraldgraphics by julie maasguest contributions as notedMay 22, 2019